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Thursday, April 16, 2015

I'm Officially Sick

I had all the telltale signs of impending doom illness on Tuesday night: sore throat, sensitive skin, stuffy nose, slight headache etc., but I went to bed after a very long day and didn't think too much of it. Then I woke up on Wednesday morning and realized that I probably should have thought about it more. In hindsight, Wednesday morning was nothing compared to how I felt throughout the day yesterday. I woke up feeling horrible and progressively declined to "this is what death must feel like". Even Kai commented that I look pretty bad... as she backed away slowly out of my room :(

My goal was to swim last night (since I slept through all of my alarms on Wednesday morning and missed my date with the pool) but I really felt bad. So instead of swimming I stayed in bed, watched recommended shows on Netflix, and repeatedly took my temperature...

(No fever thankfully)

This morning I woke up at 2:45am and I was in the pool by 3:15am...

I spent the next 50 minutes swimming a mile. That's approximately 1.56 minutes per lap (50 meters). I'm pretty sure that's really really slow compared to other swimmers, but I'm just glad I was able to complete the mile despite feeling horrible. It makes me a little bit more confident about Swim Miami on Sunday...

This evening was the first day of my Chi Running class! When I got there I received a nice Chi Running journal...

The majority of the class was spent discussing the Chi Running technique and doing different drills. It was really hard for me. Apart from the fact that I was the most uncoordinated person in the class today, I couldn't grasp the concept of "engaging my core while simultaneously relaxing my hips and legs". How do you do that?? Of course when the instructor asked if everybody felt their legs relaxed and felt light on their feet, I was the only one that said "No". In fact what I actually said was "No, this feels worse". So now I have extra homework :(

I'm going to try and practice the technique and drills tomorrow morning (or at some point during the day) while they are still fresh in my mind. I will probably need to do a little bit every day until I can consistently do it on my runs. One of the biggest things about Chi Running is the focus on landing on your mid-foot (or "full foot") and not on the balls of your feet (aka your forefoot) or heels. This method is said to reduce injury risk, and anything that can keep me injury free is worth trying.

I got a pair of compression sleeves from my friend Niqui today (which I put on as soon as I got them because I'm so much of a running nerd that I will try new running things even when I'm not running). I wore them all day today and all throughout my Chi Running class...

I can't wait to test them out on an actual run!

Do you wear compression sleeves? If yes, do you think they help?

What's the furthest distance you've ever swam? or run? or cycled?

Do you ever go back and re-read your training journals?

Do you change your training journal every calendar year or training cycle?

2 comments:

I haven't tried sleeves, but I do love my compression socks! My furthest distance swimming ? I don't think I have ever measured how far I have swam before, but I really really want to do a tri soon so I have to get my butt in gear. I love to re-read my training journals, sometimes the format changes like now I am using the believe journal but before I had an app that I could use on my phone.